Keeping identity of killers a secret 'will be huge task'

During eight years in custody, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson have been the subject of constant care, supervision and specialist attention.

Psychiatrists, psychotherapists, teachers, social workers, probation officers and even the Chief Inspector of Prisons have been among those in the queue to visit Britain's most notorious child killers.

The spotlight under which the pair have lived in their separate secure units has been almost as intense as that which the media has relentlessly shone on their case throughout their years in detention.

The reason for their special treatment is obvious: their return to society must be so seamless that nothing occurs to compromise their anonymity. For despite the passage of time, deep-felt hostility towards Thompson and Venables clearly remains.

The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, acknowledged yesterday that there "was a real and strong possibility that their lives would be at risk if their identities became known". He said that without granting the youths anonymity there were "grave doubts" as to whether they could be properly supervised by probation staff.

To this end, many thousands of pounds have been spent on giving Venables and Thompson new social security numbers, bank accounts, ID cards and birth certificates. New identities may also have to be created for close family members.

Even so, Harry Fletcher, of the National Association of Probation Officers, said the freeing of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson would be "a massive challenge" for the service. He predicted they would be freed "virtually immediately" but admitted "common sense decrees that lots of things can go wrong".

Mr Fletcher said: "The Probation Service has virtually no experience in relocating people in these circumstances. There are numerous pitfalls and dangers – for example, if they are spotted by someone else, or are indiscreet themselves."

One of these pitfalls could be a decision by the teenagers themselves to reveal their identities. In a similar case in Britain in 1998, child killer Mary Bell – who served 12 years for murdering two young boys in 1968 – sold her story to author Gitta Sereny in a deal worth a reported £50,000.

In 1984, she had given birth to a daughter and the High Court banned the media from revealing her new identity or the identity of her child or its father.

Tabloid newspaper reporters laid siege to Bell's home in northern England and she decided to reveal her past to her daughter who authorities tried to prevent from being identified.

To protect Venables and Thompson, the authorities gave them false names while they were held in separate secure units in the north of England. They were reportedly moved around to stop anyone guessing their identities. But the boys became known to other inmates.

Earlier this year, Thompson became the subject of damaging claims by a fellow inmate that he had tried to strangle him with a piece of cord. The story was angrily denied by Thompson's solicitor but added to the doubts over whether the killers had really changed their ways.

Despite the controversies, Thompson and Venables have both made significant progress and shown that they are academically able. Thompson has gained five GCSEs and is said to be keen to pursue his education to degree level. Venables' progress was helped by regular visits from his parents

Sir David Ramsbotham, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, was so impressed with Thompson that he remarked in an interview of his "considerable admiration" for the boy's accomplished artwork. Sir David said: "I saw his work and he is someone of talent."

The Chief Inspector went on to call for the two boys to be released before it became necessary to admit them into the prison system "to give them some chance to make a life".

The view was controversial but it was one with which the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, concurred when he ruled last October that "further detention would not serve any constructive purpose". But the picture which Lord Woolf painted of the two killers was described by James Bulger's mother, Denise Fergus, as "shocking and disgusting".

Many others have found it difficult to reconcile the apparent new facts with the images they retain from the trial, when details of their "act of unparalleled evil and barbarity" were relayed to the world.